Live and in Colour
by Ifere
Summary: Danny gives an interview on a chat show. Everything goes according to plan, for about ten seconds. No PP.
1. Chapter 1

I still don't own Danny Phantom.

* * *

Unexpected Guests

The host sat on a couch and smiled brightly. The audience cheered and clapped loudly. He knew today was going to be different. Being a professional, no one could tell when he wasn't really interested in whatever was going on. He wasn't going to have to work hard today, however. No matter how things finally turn out, today's show would not be boring. He would say it was impossible, but in Amity Park that happens almost daily. Then he gets sent out to report on it, even though he keeps insisting he's just a weather man.

"Hello, and welcome to the show. I'm today's guest host, Lance Thunder. Have we got a treat for you today, where as well as a very special guest, we'll be broadcasting live!" He waited a few seconds for the crowd to calm down. "Todays guest was kept as a secret at his own request. I know him, you know him, he's Amity Park's very own Ghost Boy, Danny Phantom!"

The crowd erupted just as expected as the town hero flew out from backstage. He did a few loops in the air before landing in his spot, on one of three couches around a table. He'd been asked to do so to give viewers some proof it was really him, and provide something on-screen until the studio audience stopped screaming. He wasn't sure how Sam and Tucker talked him into this, but at least he got a friendly group of people to probably embarrass himself in front of. Not a large group, with Amity being a small place, but that wasn't the point.

"I have to say, I was extremely surprised when I was asked to fill in during this episode, Phantom. Especially when I was told you requested me yourself," Lance began as soon as it was quiet enough.

"Well, I was told the usual hostess was too sick to make it today, so I thought _who's a person on TV who had to do something they don't normally and did a respectable job? _You were the obvious choice. And Danny's fine."

Lance blinked at that. He hid how pleased and shocked he was to hear his reporting called "respectable". It made his next sentence a lot harder. "Thank you, Danny. We'll also be joined this morning by Jack and Maddie Fenton."

Danny became worried. He was not told his parents were going to be here. He watched as they walked on stage from the opposite side to the one he had been on. As long as he was careful, this shouldn't be a problem. His thoughts were interrupted by Jack's cry of "Ghost!" and his reaching for a weapon. Maddie stopped him before hs hand got far.

"Not now, Jack. We can hunt the ghost boy later." Her husbands disappointed noise of an answer was drowned out by boos from the audience. While they sat down Lance motioned for the public to quiet down so he could continue.

"You're sure they're not going to try and shoot me, right?" Danny asked, eyeing his parents warily. The last thing he needed was his father firing near a large crowd. He was going to have to be careful about what he said and did.

"Security took all their weapons before they came up here," Lance tried to reassure him. He hoped his first interview like this wouldn't result in bodily harm.

"Are you sure? They always pull more from somewhere. I wouldn't be very surprised if Mo-Maddie had the Fenton Bazooka hidden in there," the teen prodded, barely catching himself before calling her mom. He glanced over her blue jumpsuit, not seeing any signs she was armed. Just like he never sees any while she cooks breakfast, carrying at least three blasters, an ecto-staff and -he suspects- something built into her slippers.

"We're sure. They're just here to give their expert opinion on all things ghostly."

Danny was spared having to hide his feelings on his parents supposed expertise by his father.

"And to make sure you don't lie like the ecto-scum you are, we brought this!" Jack boomed out, placing his latest invention on the table. Most people who saw the show were impressed that it was still standing afterwards. "The Fenton Ghost Lie-Detector! It beeps whenever a ghost lies!"

_Well,_ Danny thought, _so much for being careful._

"Does it work?" he asked out loud.

"Of course it works! It was built by me, Jack Fenton!" the orange-clad man declared proudly.

"How did you test it?" Danny asked. It's not like the pair of hunters he calls his family have ever managed to get their hands on a ghost. Which raises some interesting questions about how they got the rest of their inventions to work... He decided he'd ask Clockwork about that sometime. That and the slippers. Which may be paranoid, but losing his secret or his life to fuzzy footwear would just be embarrassing.

"Umm, I haven't, yet?" Jack said, confused. Danny leaned closer to the table, carefully. It was an object built by the man who thinks an inter-dimentional gateway belongs in his basement. Even knowing it can explode in a mile high pillar of fire if his teenaged son forgets to change the ecto-filtrater.

"The sky is purple," he tried.

BZZZ

A loud, obnoxious screech came from the box. Danny, Lance and most of the audience flinched.

"Jack Fenton has great aim," he tested again.

BZZZ

The crowd stifled a laugh at that. Everyone knows the Fenton patriarch couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. While inside it.

"That noise is almost as annoying as the Box Ghost." The laughter was let out at that one. Although everyone still leaves when he shows up, it's well known he's just a nuisance.

...

...

...

"Way to go, Jack. You invented a machine that proves not everything a ghost says is a lie," the halfa said, his green eyes glowing approvingly.

"Of course it is!" Phantom resisted putting his head in his hands. And screaming. He was hoping it wouldn't come to this, even knowing it would. He was going to have to make his parents look like idiots on live TV.


	2. Chapter 2

The Truth Shall Set You Free

Lance looked between Phantom and Jack. The young ghost looked disappointed, though he was hiding it well. Having had to stay fairly close to several of his fights, the unwilling reporter had learned to read him a little. It helped him tell when to run for his life. The human looked like he had just stated the most obvious thing in the world.

"Really? Then why did you make this? And why didn't it go off when I called it annoying?" The playful glint in the boy's eyes didn't match up to it's normal standard. Not that anyone but Lance could tell that.

Jack was stuck. He completely believed that ghosts always lie. He also completely believed his invention works. Before he, or more likely Maddie, could answer the question Danny did it for them.

"Did it ever occur to you that everything you think you know about ghosts comes from ghost hunters? That's the people who want to use everything they learn to hurt us? If someone you know is a serial killer walked up to you and asked for your address, would you tell them? Of course you wouldn't. You'd lie your butt off and run away."

"Why should we believe you? Your just an evil ghost," Maddie spat out. Danny sighed.

"I'm not evil." Lance saw the opportunity to ask some of the questions he was supposed to get to. Keeping the guests from fighting was an added bonus. This wasn't that kind of show, after all.

"Many of your critics would disagree, Danny. There is proof that you've stolen in the past, and that incident with the mayor. What do you have to say about that?"

Ignoring the way Maddie flinched at the use of his name and the smug look she was giving him now, he smiled. He had agreed that anything could be asked, but he wouldn't answer anything too private. The producers of the show knew not to bother with anything a normal guest would refuse to answer. Well, for personal reasons, anyway. His being a ghost mixes things up a little.

"Well, lets start with the mayor. He was being overshadowed by the Ghost Zone's prison warden who has a grudge with me-"

"Hah! Ghosts aren't smart enough to have prisons!" Jack interrupted.

"Really? Who was it that pulled Amity into the Ghost Zone?" Danny replied.

"The Ghost King," Maddie answered.

"If we have a King, why wouldn't we have a prison? Even if the warden is crazy and makes up his own rules. Anyway, if the hunters who burst in on us had been competent, they would have seen his eyes glowing red."

"We are competent, you putrid pile of proto-plasm," his mother defended herself.

"You're also in Africa right now."

BZZZ. Everyone but Danny flinched again as the lie detector went off.

"Forgot about that, didn't you?" Danny taunted. This could end up much better than he expected. No one would be able to claim he made things up to get out of this now. They would anyway, but everyone else would take this as evidence in his favour. His parents couldn't say anything without saying their creation didn't work. It was perfect, if only he didn't have to make fools out of them in front of everyone. His human half would pay for this in school later.

"You still stole things," she deflected back to him. It was clear to everyone she didn't think he had an answer to that. They could also see her husband trying to figure out the insult from earlier.

"True. Most of it while being controlled by the leader of Circus Gothica, who was later arrested and found to have a large collection of stolen objects and money from unsolved crimes in places that don't believe in ghosts."

Before anyone could call him a liar he pointed to the silent box on the table. After a moment of waiting Lance moved things along.

"Most of it?" While his tone was diplomatic and mildly curious in a polite sort of way, he genuinely hoped the boy would answer that one.

"Occasionally I need things to save the world. For instance, I took a rocket from Axiom Labs because the technology controlling ghost had taken over a satellite of theirs and was going to beam himself around the globe when he broke through it's security measures. I can get to space myself, but my top speed wasn't high enough to get there in time. If the owner happens to see this, I'm fairly certain not being enslaved by Technus, who would be unremoveable at that point, is worth the cost of a rocket. Right, Vlad?" he asked the camera.

"What makes you think he'd be 'unremoveable'?" their host asked.

"Does anyone know how to get a ghost out of all the tech on the planet simultaneously?" He glanced around, looking for anyone who might say something. "No? Me neither."

"What about all the damage you cause? You cost this town a lot of money," his mother asked scornfully. The crowd seemed to take her side on that issue, not that Danny was surprised. People are perfectly happy to let him save them, as long as it doesn't affect them at all.

"Yeah, 'cause I'm the one brainwashing concert crowds, creating giant meat monsters and stealing electronics to build a robotic body from."

BZZZ

_Doesn't detect sarcasm. Definately one of dad's, _Danny laughed to himself.

"The others will cause damage whether I'm here or not. Our fights would create less damage if idiot ghost hunters didn't keep interrupting when I'm about to win and shooting me in the back. Mostly by letting there be half as many."

"Ghost hunters are not idiots!" Jack shouted, upset to be insulted by a mindless blob of ectoplasm.

"Well, there are two who aren't," Danny conceded, thinking about Sam and Tucker. "But most of you are inexperienced morons with no clue and no chance of getting one."

"We have lots of experience! We've been doing this for twenty-two years," Jack exclaimed proudly.

"Two years," Danny corrected his father. "I've been throwing ghosts back into the Zone since before you first saw one, who was me, two years ago. Anything before that was looking, not hunting. All your theories about us are wrong, made without ever meeting one of us, based on research by others who never met one of us. And you two go around spouting them off as facts when proof of the opposite is right in front of you. While you're great inventors, you're terrible scientists."

"We're great scientists," Maddie huffed indignantly.

"Really?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. Danny's grin was less forced than before, Lance noticed. What he didn't know was that Danny had been planning this conversation for a long time, even if he wanted it to be more private and less insulting to his parents. Although making "sweet, intelligent, Maddie" look like an idiot might get Vlad to back off. Unlikely, but possible. His smile grew. As long as he treated this as a chance to deal with the fruitloop the afternoon could be salvaged.


	3. Chapter 3

The Truth Hurts

Maddie didn't like the look Phantom was giving her. Or anything else about him, but right then she focused on the way he arched his brow in what she took for mock curiosity. For once she was right in that assumption, Danny being her son and knowing exactly what he was talking about, but she wasn't aware of that.

"Of course," she assured him. Just like he knew she would.

"You know, your constantly calling me a liar when your own machine says I'm not hurts my feelings," he replied, baiting his trap. _And Vlad thinks he can do a better job teaching me things than ghost_ _fighting._

"You don't have feelings, you're a ghost."

His mother took it. If being predictable was a contest his parents would take first and second. Along with a few honorary awards.

"Yes I am. What does that have to do with anything?" Danny pretended to ponder. He'd heard the reasoning behind that idea a thousand times before, at least.

"You're just an electro-magnetic signature in a stable ectoplasmic matrix. you can't have anything as complex as emotions." she informed him as if that settled everything.

_Having things fall into place would have been much more satisfying if the Guys in White were here instead_, Danny thought. Fate's sense of humor was nothing new to him, however, so he kept going.

"Last I heard the human mind worked the same way. So what you're saying is that ectoplasm, which can do almost anything, including create and destroy any form of energy and matter, a feat this whole universe can't achieve, is less able to generate a magnetic field than the lump of neurons humans call their brain? That doesn't seem to make sense to me, but I'm sure you've got an explanation. Please enlighten me," Danny implored the hunters. No answer came as Jack looked thoughtful, mostly about what experiments he could run to find that out and Maddie looked angry at herself for losing an argument to a ghost.

Lance considered what to say next. Scientific discussion wasn't what most of the viewers of this show are interested in. Although, the boy's statement could lead to some things that are.

"That was well thought out, Danny. Especially from someone who looks so young. Do you have an interest in science yourself?" he queried the teen. If he was lucky he might get some mention of his age or how long he's been a ghost.

"Some, yes. I like to study space, myself. The world's an interesting place and being young is no excuse for not learning things. That was mostly for them though. Sometimes to get through to people, you have to talk to them on their level. For instance, did you know some ghost hunters think we can't feel pain for some ridiculous reason?" Danny joked, in appearance anyway. He was sure one of his parents would blurt out something suitable to his purpose.

"You can't! You just think you can!" Jack obliged.

"You have no nerves to feel with, therefore, you can't feel. It's just a left over memory of life, you odd manifestation of post-human consciousness," the redhead elaborated.

"I also have no nerves connecting my eyes to anything, therefore, I can't see what I'm looking at. So why do you guys keep shooting me in the back? Anyway, pain is just the sense of touch you use to tell something's wrong. If I can't touch, how do I tell how much strength I'm using? Is it the amount I need to catch a falling school bus full of kids, or the amount I need to pull someone from a burning building? If I can't tell when something's wrong, how do I always know when someone's shot me in the back? And seriously, you take every chance you get to point out I'm made of ectoplasm, a substance not native to this dimension. Why would I follow the same biological rules you do?"

While the Fenton couple tried to think of an answer to that, Lance noticed something else he could use. "You've mentioned being shot in the back before. Does that happen a lot?"

"You have no idea," Danny told him, exasperated and gesturing with his arms. "Teleporting behind me, hiding in bushes and my personal favourite, the huntress yelling how much of a coward I am for running, not blasting her off her jet sled when she's the one who snuck up on me. Usually during a fight, letting the other ghost get away."

Unlike when he has to lie, Danny's natural expressiveness was an advantage. If he acted a bit immature it was taken as a reminder that the ghost boy was just that, a boy. And who wouldn't grow tired of being attacked from behind all the time? He saw more than a few pitying expressions in the audience before closing his eyes a moment to calm down.

"You deserve it, trying to gain our trust so you can take over," Maddie interrupted. Danny's eyes snapped open in surprise, before he burst out laughing.

"You think I'd need that? If I wanted to take over I wouldn't need your trust. I would need to not be one of the most hated ghosts in the Zone so no one who could do something about it shows up. And Plasmius told me you were intelligent!" he laughed again.

"Plasmius?" Lance asked.

"One of my enemies. Wants me to join him, doesn't understand the words 'no way, you crazed-up Fruitloop'. They call him The Wisconsin Ghost. Turns out he has a thing for Mrs Fenton-"

"WHAT?" Maddie exploded. The look of absolute horror on his mom's face would most likely never be seen again. Danny made another note to have Tucker spam all Vlad's email accounts with a clip of his being the cause of it. He would listen to a full monologue from Technus to be there when he opens the first one.


	4. Chapter 4

Lance looked between the ghost boy and the ghost hunter. If any teenaged girl in Amity had been told the green-eyed boy "had a thing" for them, they'd most likely faint from happiness. Maddie Fenton clearly didn't share the idea that a ghost having an interest in her was a good thing. About thirty seconds later Jack had calmed her down, just a little.

"Yeah, not a guy you want to have to deal with. Back when he was alive he fell in love with a woman, well, claims he loved the woman, anyway... but she ended up married to his best friend. He also claims the friend stole her, even though they'd been in love with her before Plasmius was, and she never returned his feelings. She was put off by his being a manipulative jerk. He tries to blame the circumstances of his death for that, but he knows just as well as anyone else things don't work that way," Danny explained. "He's always been attracted to things he can't have."

"Which things don't work that way?" the weatherman asked. The first interview in the world with a ghost, about ghosts, where the ghost is definitely telling the truth. Whether or not the usual audience wanted to hear about science, they'd all want to see this.

"Becoming a ghost. Dying doesn't make someone evil. If it did your species would be in trouble. There are a lot more dead humans than live ones and some of the live ones are worse than any ghost, except maybe the King. People claim ghosts are evil because they're obsessive, but that misses the point entirely. We didn't become obsessive because we're ghosts, we became ghosts because we were obsessive."

"What difference does that make?" Maddie asked him, recovered from her shock. The antagonistic tone was back in her voice.

"All the difference in the world," he answered, as if explaining something simple to a small child. "The people in this room most likely to become ghosts are you two, after all."

"We would never do that!" Jack yelled angrily. Maddie sat next to him restraining her fury.

"What? Die, get given the choice to move on or go where the ghosts are, and immediately get the urge to go hunting? Probably while yelling 'GHOST' at the top of your voice?"

"Yes!" the fudge-loving man replied instantly. Danny shook his head. He could deal with that later. In fact, it gave him an idea. He would just have to change a few things.

"We're not that different," he said. Turning to Lance, he asked, "Did you guys get the thing I asked for set up?"

"We did," the man told him. "You want to use i now?"

"Please."

Danny pulled out a PDA and got ready. When he was a view of what he was doing was available on screens to the audience, the guests on stage and the viewers at home. They could see two columns, labeled good and evil.

"I was going to do this a bit differently, but this will work better," the hero informed everyone. "I'm going to compare a human we can all recognise with a ghost friend of mine. The ghost will be a snow-beast and the human will be Jack Fenton. OK?"

Tapping the PDA again he got started.

"One is driven by obsession, the other would do anything to protect those he cares about. One has violent tendencies, the other doesn't have a bad bone in his body. One is highly destructive, the other builds things. One is a large, sasquatch-shaped creature," as Danny spoke the traits he listed appeared under the correct heading. A silloet of a thing with it's arms raised appeared under Evil."The other is Frostbite, leader of the yeti tribe."

Everyone was shocked when a picture of Frostbite appeared under the Good traits and the implication sank in. Suddenly Danny pointed behind Jack and called out "Ghost!"

"GHOST!" Jack bellowed at th top of his voice as he spang to his feet and spun around with surprising speed. He pulled an ecto-gun from, as Danny had said earlier, "somewhere" and blasted part of the set. He didn't even notice the lie detector beeping. He did notice the ghost behind him lean over on his sofa and stage whisper behind his hand.

"Violent tendencies," Danny pretended to tell only Lance. Any idea that he was just joking was gone. Everyone knows how much damage Jack can cause during a ghost attack.

"Jack is a good man. He loves his family and treats everyone like a friend. He's one of the few people who cares about others as much or even more than themselves. Why would being a ghost make him lose that?"

"Then why do all the ghosts keep attacking?" Maddie tried to justify herself. Danny chuckled.

"All the ghosts. Do you have any idea how many that is? For every one that comes here there are many more who just want to be left alone. We all have our own thing and want the peace to get on with it."

"What would ghosts know about peace?" the goggled woman huffed.

"The Ghost Zone has had two wars in the last couple thousand years. The first was against the Ghost King, who was a tyrant and had to be removed. After he was locked away, the only artifact that could release him was given to a powerful ghost who roamed remote places. That peace lasted until someone, who wasn't a ghost by the way, went looking and stole it. No ghost had ever been that stupid. The second war was a lot shorter. Stick Pariah back into his prison, battle over. That was a busy day for me, what with fighting the most powerful being in the realms," the teen reminisced, shuddering. "Painful, too."

"What does that prove?"

"How many have humans fought in the last five minutes? More than two?" Taking the troubled expression his mother wore as getting his point across, he moved on.

"The ghosts who terrorize the human world are former humans who do what most humans would do if no one could stop them. Even if you won't admit to most, you all know at least one jerk."

As the assembled humans all had a mild look of disgust, the one which showed Phantom they were all thinking of that one jerk everybody knows, he suddenly sat up straighter.

"Do you guys hear that?"


End file.
